


Before Baramos

by queenofzan



Series: Before Baramos [1]
Category: Dragon Quest III, Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 14:12:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofzan/pseuds/queenofzan
Summary: This is tagged Original Work as well as DQIII because Dragon Quest III does not really...give you much in the way of characterization for most characters. Did that stop me from getting really attached to the personalities I imagined based on the single adjective description? It did not.





	Before Baramos

**Author's Note:**

> The fighter I ended up with from the Tavern was a lady fighter whose personality was "macho", so naturally Lita became a butch jock womanizer who I was really really attached to, and that's probably how I ended up here.

Lita walked up to where Erica sat, on the edge of camp, staring out at the forest around them. “Hey, hero,” she said.

Erica looked up at her and Lita froze, because she had never, in all her time provoking Erica into emotion, seen her look like this.

“Hey,” Lita said, more softly, kneeling next to her, “what’s up?”

“I’m scared,” Erica said.

Erica had argued with an elf queen, fought through a horde of skeletons out for Lita’s blood, told royal after royal off, and killed an eight-headed dragon. She’d gone alone into a secret cave full of monsters, and thrown a legendary sword into the volcano she’d grown up thinking killed her father. Lita had never seen any evidence she was scared.

But they were about to wake the great bird and fly to the Demon Lord’s castle. Months of searching for keys, orbs, and traces of Erica’s father had all been for this. Go to the castle of the Demon Lord and kill him, freeing the world from his tyranny. Lita was scared out of her fucking mind at the thought of actually fighting the Demon Lord. It wasn’t surprising Erica would be too, if Lita had known she could feel fear. Which sounded stupid, but she was the daughter of the hero Ortega, the honorary Queen of Romaly, a sixteen year old–now seventeen–who had dedicated her whole life to training for his.

“Oh,” Lita said. “Yeah. Me too.”

Erica snorted. “You’re not scared of anything.”

“Hey, I’m not _that_ stupid,” Lita said, and Erica smiled thinly at her. “I’m scared of lotsa things. I was losing my mind when you went into that cave by yourself. I was so scared you wouldn’t come back.”

“You doubted me?” Erica asked.

“I worried for you,” Lita said. “It was hours and hours, and you came back covered in blood, I think I was right to be scared.” Lita lightly punched her arm. “But you got through that, and you’ll get through this.”

“You don’t know that,” Erica said, frowning. Her heavy eyebrows drew together to form those familiar worry lines that made her look years older.

“Hey, I don’t know nothing,” Lita said. Erica smiled a bit. “But no one else has ever collected all the orbs. No one else pulled my claws out of the pyramid and lived. If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

Erica smiled at her, then turned back to the woods. “I’m still scared,” she whispered.

Lita reached for her hand and took it. Erica clutched at it. “I know,” Lita said. “Me too.”

They sat there, holding hands and looking out into the trees, for a long time. The fire crackled less behind them, and Riud and Jiga’s voices had dropped to a murmur, and then to nothing.

Finally, Erica turned to Lita again and said, “I don’t want to die without telling you how I feel.”

Lita swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “You aren’t dying,” she said.

“I might,” Erica said, serious. “You might. And I–I haven’t always been forthcoming,” she said. “I just don’t want you to think I don’t care about you, because I do.”

“Jeez, hero,” Lita muttered, and looked away. She didn’t let go of Erica’s hand, though.

“Um,” Erica said, and Lita heard her hair rustle against her collar. Her hair had grown shaggy during the search for the orbs. Lita looked back at her and was unsurprised to see she was looking away now. “And since I do like you, I thought maybe–” She laughed. “I don’t want to die without living,” she said. “All I’ve ever done is train and fight, and now we’re almost there, and I haven’t done anything.”

“You’ve played Pachisi,” Lita said, and Erica snorted. “But you know, the world’s waited this long to be rid of the Demon Lord. If you really want to experience life, I’m sure we could find another Pachisi track somewhere.”

“Dammit, Lita, will you just kiss me?”

Lita smiled and squeezed her hand. “Jeez, hero, all you had to do was ask,” she said, and kissed her.


End file.
